The spiral scarlet beam of light hesitated at the door to Picard's quarters.
She had had no trouble moving past the sensors; they simply weren't made to
detect her. She was a shape-shifter from deep within the Beta quadrant -- but
she had other blood, blood she generally hated to acknowledge. Ztlaf was
half-Q.

* * *

Picard saw the light, shimmery, intense. He tried to look away from it. He
tried to wake up; the light hurt. Ztlaf saw his discomfort and changed,
instantaneously, into a white mare. She whinnied softly at him, nuzzling his
chest. He breathed a sigh inwardly; this wasn't a nightmare. (Actually, it
was a night mare.) He looked about for a saddle. There was none. He heard
a soft, feminine voice whisper in his mind, "Ride me. Ride me till morning."
He became aware suddenly of an erection beginning; he cleared his throat and
looked away from the horse. Maybe he should take advantage of that shore
leave Troi told him to take.

The horse whinnied again. With sheer force of will, Picard quelled his
erection and mounted the horse. Ztlaf knew she could make him hard with her
mind, but she didn't want it that way. She had watched him now for weeks --
listened to his voice, seen him commanding his ship. He was respected and
loved. He was the most noble of the creatures she had yet to encounter. She
knew it was the Q in her that wanted to possess him, to take away his
control, to confront him with the fantasies he pushed away and refused to
acknowledge even on the holo-deck. This time, she didn't fight it; she
didn't care. She wanted him, and she would be there for him every night,
when he slept.

Picard was amazed at the silkiness of the horse's body; when he had looked
at her, she had seemed to be looking right back, not the way a horse would,
but... The idea of shore leave presented itself again; he was having an
awfully bizarre dream. Maybe he should stop eating the Klingon delicacies
Worf treated him to once a week. He began with a slow trot, but the feel of
it was wrong -- the horse's back seemed to be swallowing him into it, moving
back and forth, rather than up and down. It was so strange, peculiar --
erotic. Yes; this dream horse was moving to arouse him. Clearly, that was
its purpose. The moment he realized this, he moved to jump off, and suddenly
found himself flat on his back in his bunk. He was naked; he could feel the
mattress underneath him. There was weight on top; he started. He was being
clutched in the arms of a young woman. He felt her breasts digging into his
chest; he was inside her, and she was sitting there, working her vaginal
muscles around his penis. He tried desperately to wake up. He couldn't. He
tried to reach for his dream comm badge, thinking he could extricate himself
by calling in a dream security officer. But no, his comm badge was not there.

"Why do you resist the erotic, the primitive, the animal side of yourself,
Jean-Luc?" He tried to push the woman off of him, but his fingers, his hands
seemed to have no force at all. He rolled onto his stomach, and -- now she
was below him, he inside her. He realized suddenly he was breathing heavily,
sweating slightly. His penis ached for her; he could not stop moving within
her. Her arms wrapped around him like a vice, she took his right ear in her
mouth, nibbling playfully around it, flicking her tongue inside and out. He
was feeling a part of himself he hadn't acknowledged since his early days at
the Academy. He was burning for this woman; even though already inside her,
he wanted to go deeper, faster. He wanted more, and more, and...

Suddenly, at the point where he knew he could not last another second, she
tightened around him, her breath heaving and hot on his neck. Her fingernails
dug painfully and wonderfully into his back. He had never felt a woman so
hungry, so...

Suddenly, he felt himself come, his body shaking with every spurt. He became
alarmed when he realized he was awake, and Commander Data stood beside his
bunk.

"Sir? Captain, are you ill?"

Picard realized suddenly that his orgasm had not only been intense and
earth-moving, but vocal as well.

"Sir? You're face and neck -- they are quite red. Are you ill, sir? You were
making... the oddest noises. You sounded rather similar to Tasha when..."